Technical Field
The present disclosure relates generally to using motion information from compressed video data to select endpoints to be shown in a multipoint video conference.
Background
A video conference system allows endpoints at two or more locations to communicate simultaneously by two-way video and audio transmission. Typically, powerful computer processors are used to employ video compression to reduce the amount of channel bits needed to be transmitted between endpoints. Simultaneous video conferencing among three or more remote points is made possible by way of a multi-point control unit (MCU), which bridges interconnect calls from several sources.
The MCU may also make use of voice switching, in which voice activity from the audio streams of the endpoints is used to signal which endpoints should be sending video to the MCU, thereby permitting only the endpoints which have actively speaking participants to send video to the MCU, which then transmits the video and audio steams to the other endpoints in the multipoint video conference.